Accordingly, the present vacuum submerged arc production method and machine thereof as a heat source are to provide an energy condition necessary for fabrication process, wherein an advantage of using the arc as the heat source of the heating system is primarily on the high power and the excellent stability; and further, the technique of arc control system is mature and the cost of establishment of the system is relatively low. After the material immersed in the cooling liquid of the vacuum chamber is excited by the arc-inducing machine to produce the arc, the temperature produced will be high enough to evaporate the material, and the nanoscale metal particle can be obtained through condensation. Due to the nanoparticles directly stored in the liquid, the nanoparticles can be carried with the cooling liquid to an area collection to be classified and selected, and then the dried particles of those can be separated from the liquid-state cooling liquid through the extraction process.
As shown in FIG. 1, the conventional vacuum submerged arc manufacture equipment 1 primarily consists of a vacuum chamber 11, an arc-inducing system 12, a cooling liquid circulatory system 13, and a pressure balance system 14. Wherein the pressure balance system 14 substantially includes a vacuum pump 141 and a switching valve 142, which are used to keep the vacuum chamber 11 under proper vacuum pressure. The deionized water is used as a dielectric liquid in the vacuum chamber 11, wherein the metal bar is located in the bottom, wherein keeps proper gap with the bar of the same material located in the arc-inducing machine 121 in the arc-inducing system 12. The arc-inducing system 12 can provide a stable arc current as the heat source of the heating system, while the arc-inducing system 12 can be used to set or adjust the important process parameters of the desired current, dischargeable time, dischargeable rest time, servo providing time, and dischargeable interval, etc. The cooling circulatory system 13 controls the switch valve 131 to make a cooling liquid 111 inside the vacuum chamber 11 achieving a stable low-temperature state, which is helpful to make crystal grain nucleation, and to simultaneously prevent the growth of the crystal grain; thus, the nanoparticles with smaller diameters and more uniform distribution can be obtained.
The patents or technical theses disclosed related to the above-mentioned on-line sampling technique, analysis technique and relevant process for the nanoparticle fluid or suspension are extremely few, and the more relevant prior patents are as below:
The analysis method and technique of the particle diameter distribution measurement and the solid composition and the concentration in the suspension (U.S. Pat. No. 5,569,844, Oct. 29, 1996): They primarily arrange the probe, sensor, and stirrer within the suspension sample, and use the decay degree from the ultrasonic emission to the received signal to decide the particle diameter inside the suspension, while the measurement scale is around the micrometer level.
Rapid fluid sampler (Taiwan R.O.C. Publication No. 120030 Utility Patent): An oil or fluid sampler, the principle thereof is to use an inlet to introduce the air and an outlet with gradually open downward funnel structure to produce the vacuum suction to proceed the sampling action.
Automatic sampling apparatus (Taiwan R.O.C. Publication No. 248309 Utility Patent): Using the siphon principle is to catch the specimens of the sample trough inside the general chemical examination instrument and rearrange new specimens; and thus the problem derived from manually replacing the sample can be avoided.
Ultrasonic enhanced submerged arc vacuum oscillation nanoparticle manufacture method and machine (R.O.C. Publication No. 506867 Patent): By using the deionized water or the discharge processed liquid as the dielectric liquid under vacuum condition, the material will be melted and evaporated instantly due to the arc discharge, and in the mean time. The disturbance and impact force from the ultrasonic oscillator make the vaporized metal tend to deflect the high-temperature melted region resulting in more uniform and precise particle dimension. Manufacturing method and machine structure for the nanoparticle material vacuum arc enclosure fluid field (Taiwan R.O.C. Patent Application Serial No. 091114909): Its characteristic is to put the original material in the quartz crucible of the vacuum chamber and induce the arc to make the material evaporated, while the cooling liquid of the enclosure fluid field will cool and condense the evaporated material floating from the quartz crucible to produce the nanoscale metal particle material with uniform distribution.
Though there are various characteristics and functions for above-mentioned relevant patents, respectively; however, there are no related patents or documents focusing on the development of the on-line sampling and detection of the nanoparticle vacuum submerged arc process (low temperature and low pressure) neither in domestic country nor in abroad.
The nanoparticle vacuum submerged arc manufacture method and machine (Taiwan R.O.C. Patent Publication No. 434067 is a novel nanoparticle manufacture method around the world, wherein the pressure and the temperature of the deionized water maintains at negative pressure approximately below 100 Torr and the range of 3° C. to 5° C., respectively, during the process. Using off-line TEM to observe the nanoparticle distribution of the Ti nanoparticles or TiO2 nanoparticles produced from pure Ti, and the major diameters of the nanoparticle distribution are within the range of 10˜200 nm. Because the process parameters effecting the nanometer generation control are numerous, the particle parameter data obtained from the present off-line particle measurement, undoubtedly, will be influenced by the problems of particle deposition phenomenon, contamination induced by the test handling process, and particle diameter distribution accuracy.
Furthermore, in the view of the optimal requirement for the process, because the amount of the manufacture parameters of the vacuum submerged arc process is plenty, and it's time-consuming for obtaining a set of parameter data, it will take about 2 hours to complete an effective sampling following the present process settings and restrictions; therefore, it is hard to effectively proceed the optimal design work of the process and the system parameters.